


Totality

by cadkitten



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Explicit Consent, Kissing, Love, Lunar Eclipse, M/M, Relationship Discussions, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 04:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Andrew gestured up at the sky again and Neil turned his attention back to the eclipse. It was just long enough between turning back and Andrew actually acting that Neil had honestly started to think he'd changed his mind somewhere along the way. It wouldn't have bothered him if he had, but what came instead was one of the best moments of Neil's life.





	Totality

**Author's Note:**

> Song[s]: "I'll Follow you" by Shinedown and "Wicked Game" (cover) by Theory of a Deadman

Neil braced his forearms on the balcony of their hotel room. His cigarette dangled lazily from his fingertips, ash occasionally dusting down over the parking lot some four stories below. Their game tonight had been brutal, the Bearcats putting up a huge fight this year and nearly stomping them into the ground. They'd escaped by the skin of their teeth, at the very last second Kevin slamming the ball home and lighting the goal red. 

If they'd thought things had been by the skin of their teeth last year, they hadn't seen the start of it. Every team had stepped up their game in the face of losing to the biggest underdogs in the whole game. This year - as co-captain - with a team six larger in size, Neil found it was even more difficult to get them to remain cohesive. They had new kids with a whole new set of problems. Granted, it didn't seem anyone had his and Kevin's level of issues, but a few were pretty damn close. 

The biggest positive Neil could see in the face of these new challenges was that it had brought the upperclassmen and Andrew's pack closer to one another. Matt and Nicky regularly hung out and with Andrew focused on Neil and the new set of teammates it left Aaron freer than he'd ever been. Free to explore his relationship and free to actually associate with the newcomers. 

Tonight, Neil had let them all revel in their post-game bliss despite how badly he wanted to lay into a few of them for some shit they'd pulled on the court. Especially the two red cards they'd received tonight. It'd been almost a year since their team's last red card and it was sort of a point of pride for Neil that they were basically the second nicest team when it came to such things. 

He released a sigh out into the night, his gaze lifting up toward the moon. It looked huge from where he was situated, a giant ball of brightness in the sky, full with just the barest hint of the incoming eclipse lowering down over the top corner. He'd mentioned it the evening before, told everyone it was coming, but no one seemed to truly care as much as he did. Allison had been the only one to make a commentary on it and even that had been half-hearted, a way to shrug him off before he could prattle. They'd learned how to cut him off at the pass and on one hand, Neil felt strange having left so much of himself bare that they could figure it out. On the other, he was thrilled anyone would pay that much attention and that it was _okay_. For the first time in his life, Neil was allowed to be seen and heard and it felt wonderful.

The sliding glass door opened behind him, the sounds of the party going on inside drifting out onto the balcony for a moment as someone stepped out and then slid the door closed again. For a moment there was still the old familiar tense, the wind up inside him to prepare to run. His heart gave a sickly thud in his chest and he forced himself to ease back from the railing, look over his shoulder to see who'd come to join him. 

Andrew stood silently beside the door, his hard gaze studying him. That was all it took for Neil to relax again, to lean back on the railing and reach back to flick the ash from his cigarette before turning it and offering it silently to Andrew. Two steps brought Andrew to him and a lazy movement retrieved his half-burnt stick from between his fingers. He watched Andrew slip it between his lips and take a good long drag.

On the exhale, Andrew gestured to the sky. He didn't say anything, didn't really need to, and it was a comfort to Neil that he took this much like he took anything else when Neil was involved. One step at a time and with a pretty incredible grace given Neil knew Andrew probably couldn't care less.

Andrew moved to him as Neil turned around, rested his forearms on the railing again and gazed up at the sky. He could feel him standing silent sentry behind him for the longest time, the pair of them quietly gazing up as the darkness came down over the brightness of the moon. 

Andrew flicked the cigarette butt past Neil and out into the parking lot below. Neil watched it fall for a moment before looking back up, feeling so much more relaxed now that he had someone protecting his back. Andrew's hand came to rest on the railing to his left, his body heat filling the fraction of space between them in the instant before Andrew's low voice breathed out, "Yes or no?"

With a shiver, Neil fought the desire to lean back into Andrew's body, steadied himself and then replied with a quiet, "Yes."

"Do you even know what I'm asking before you answer anymore?"

"Does it matter?" Neil turned away from the sky, looking over his shoulder to where Andrew was so achingly close it was difficult not to reach for him. "The answer's always yes."

"You still say that." The unspoken words were that there had been a time when there had been a _no_ , but Andrew didn't lay voice to that particular part of his statement and Neil appreciated it. That night had been a rough one, had been filled with terror and horror and he'd honestly thought he was going to strike out at anyone who touched him. The very last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt Andrew and so the answer had been no. No because while he'd desperately needed Andrew, needed his touch and his help, he also hadn't wanted to risk what it could have cost Andrew in the long run. Neil would _never_ harm him. Not to lift a single finger against him and certainly not because he was running on adrenaline and the half-cocked desire to run.

"I mean it." _This time_... more words unspoken but understood. He saw the shadow of them on Andrew's face and he let them exist without comment. 

Andrew gestured up at the sky again and Neil turned his attention back to the eclipse. It was just long enough between turning back and Andrew actually acting that Neil had honestly started to think he'd changed his mind somewhere along the way. It wouldn't have bothered him if he had, but what came instead was one of the best moments of Neil's life.

Andrew took the last step that separated them, slid his arms around Neil's waist and after a second's worth of hesitation, rested his chin on Neil's shoulder. 

His warmth was like a blanket and the heady rush Neil got from Andrew being there - _right there_ \- was unlike anything else he'd ever experienced. Even having had Andrew's mouth around his cock, having been allowed to watch Andrew dozens of times in the past year, they still so rarely found their tender moments like this. There was so much trust in their simple interaction that Neil was certain anyone who could see them through the glass knew far better than to risk interrupting it. He was certain they were aglow with whatever this profound moment was rapidly becoming. 

His breath hitched and Andrew's hand slid under his shirt, pressed to old wounds, to times he'd cut things far too close, his touch steady and honest. He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes until Andrew's words shocked them back open. "You're missing it."

Prying his eyelids open, Neil couldn't help the smile that blossomed across his lips. "I'm not. I'm trading it for something more important."

"This hasn't happened since 1877."

Neil lifted his hand, let it hover somewhere behind him, close to Andrew but not touching. "Yes or no?"

"Yes," the reply was quiet but not at all hesitant. 

He pushed his hand into Andrew's hair as he turned, leaving himself open to a kiss if it was going to happen, his eyes half-lidded and his breath short in his lungs. "And this has never happened."

Andrew's hand came up to press against Neil's mouth, to stop his words while they both stared at one another, Neil half-turned in Andrew's embrace. He felt the flex of his fingers, felt the restraint that was taking place in Andrew's body before he let Neil's mouth go and cut his eyes back toward the sky. "It will happen again."

The very thought that this wasn't a one time event sent Neil's pulse skittering wildly, sent him to hitching his breath and turning his broad grin back on the sky. His hand slid over Andrew's cheek, had started to fall away when Andrew caught it and pressed a light kiss to his palm before letting it go. 

Neil let it rest on the railing again, allowed the slight shiver to work its way through his body and then let himself relax into Andrew's quiet embrace, Even as the dark shadow swallowed up the moon, Neil re-learned hope. Every breath brought with it something new. The feeling of Andrew allowing this to be different than any other time he'd caged Neil in somewhere, the idea that he wasn't facing him, that his back was protected to the world but unprotected to Andrew, and it gave him the thought that Andrew had always done what he did _on purpose_. Neil's back to a wall, his side of the booth toward the side of a room, his seat closer to the exits. It had always been something to allow Neil the freedom to feel like he could run. But this _this_ was something else. This was the freedom to stay and Neil had never been more grateful in his entire life.

The world slipped into darkness around them, the moon swallowed up whole and Neil whispered, "Totality," into the air, felt Andrew's shift behind him, and then the ghost of a whisper. "Yes... or no?" This one more hesitant than ever before and heat burned its way up the back of Neil's thighs, left him with air stuck in his lungs. He forced the air out and with it, a single word.

"Yes."

Andrew moved then, brought them into the darkness of the corner of the balcony and eased himself back against the corner of the railing, his hand tugging Neil along with him, boxing himself in. 

Neil took a cautious half-step forward, didn't quite go as close as Andrew had been, settled himself there until a few seconds ticked past, until Andrew reached for him with one unsteady hand and a slightly gasped breath. "One truth for one of yours."

Neil caught Andrew's hand in his own, brought it close to his own cheek and let his silence be his yes. Andrew's fingers made contact and remained, Neil's hand pressing lightly against the back of his hand. "Anything."

"If you could do anything to me what would it be?"

The question caught him off-guard, left Neil blinking at Andrew, confusion warring with what had become a regular fantasy of his. His mouth opened and before he could have ever hoped to police his answer, he was confessing his truth. "To one day earn enough trust that I could give you what you give me." 

He watched darkness cross Andrew's face for an instant before it was gone, swallowed up in the void of his usual passive look. "You already have my trust." He gestured. "This would not happen if you did not."

Neil nodded, shifting to rest his hands on the railing, his toe lightly scuffing on the ground as he thought about how to better word himself without risking someone inside hearing too much if they chose the wrong moment to open the door. Finally, he just laid himself bare, just as bold as Andrew had once been to him. "I'd like to blow you."

For an instant he thought for sure Andrew was never going to breathe again and then there was a shuddering breath that looked like it took so very much out of him to obtain. He sagged against the railing and averted his gaze toward the sky again, a blatant way to ignore Neil for the moment and Neil allowed it.

The minutes ticked by until finally, when Neil's gaze had been pulled back to the moon as well, to the barely peeking edges of it as it started out of totality, he heard Andrew's quiet answer. "When I feel like I can... I want to give that to you."

His truth, just as raw as Neil's had been, just as open and aching. That he wasn't ready, that he probably didn't know when he would be or if he ever would be able to. But that he _wanted_ to be able to. 

Neil turned back to him, saw the way his emotions closed up the instant Neil looked at him, and he reached up, let his hand hover close to Andrew's hair until he got a nod and stepped in until they were almost touching, slid his hand into Andrew's hair and held on as gently as he could manage. He leaned in for the kiss he wanted so dearly and waited. "Yes or no?" Andrew's faintly trembling hand covered his own, a breathy, "Yes," escaping between them before Neil covered Andrew's mouth with his own and sealed their world together in the same action.

This was their moment, their world. This was a confession just as much as the previous one had been. It was Andrew working on himself for the first time in years and it was him trusting Neil with everything he had. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying and the pound of Neil's heart was equal parts pleasure and adrenaline. His own trembling hand came to grasp Andrew's and he held on tight, even as they deepened the kiss, even as it became something more familiar, their chase and pull the same as it always was, all he could think to himself was just how much this meant. 

Just how much Andrew _always_ meant.


End file.
